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Tuesday, August 26, 2014

I was honored to be invited to write for Bella Andre's Kindle Word: A Game For Love. My contribution will be a 3-part series with the hero being an American goalkeeper, Patrick Harrington, who plays for a Premier League team in the U.K., and the only American on the team. He comes home to play a couple of "friendlies" with professional soccer teams in Seattle and Chicago, and discovers his best friend since grade school, Ryan Rosen, a Navy SEAL, has been killed.

Ryan leaves his beautiful fiancee, Stephanie, behind. The three were inseperable growing up. Patrick has had a crush on her since the first day she transferred into their school. Now as they both console each other, sharing the grief over the loss of Ryan, they find themselves in a new phase of their lives, in each other's arms.

In the stories, I'm going to chronicle how Patrick decides to become a SEAL, giving up his very lucrative soccer career for one with long days, hard work and little pay. Stephanie must deal with the loss of first one, and hopefully not the second love of her life. Book 2 will go into detail how Patrick makes the grade, from BUD/S training to his first deployment.

In the last book, there will be the hard happily ever after everyone expects.

Having raised a son who wanted at one time to be a professional goalkeeper and who played on some nationally ranked teams, some of this hits a little close to home. But, the soccer world is every bit as colorful as that of the SEAL community, so I thought this would make a great addition to Bella's already excellent series.

Here's an excerpt from The Beautiful Game: SEAL's Goal:

Like some
tragic Shakespearean actress walking across the stage, Stephanie was feeling heavy,
infected with a kind of sadness pox. If it was a funeral for someone else,
she’d be invisible, and how she wished she could be invisible now. She wasn’t a
bride or a widow. She was the tragic fiancée of a man who had given his life
and had left behind, incomplete, all their hopes and dreams. It just wasn’t the
way it was supposed to be. He was too good a man to be lost to the world
forever.

Her own parents
had moved to Florida after she entered college. They would fly out next week,
but wouldn’t be in time for the funeral, and Stephanie understood this,
although she so wished she had someone in her corner. Ryan had always been that
someone. Ryan would have known exactly what to do to calm her down. She told
herself yesterday she’d be okay, but now she wasn’t sure. It was so unfair.

She continued
searching as more guests arrived. A small roar developed when a new person
arrived in the foyer. Someone very tall, whose head poked up above the large
philodendron in the front room. A man with dark brown hair, not gray. Her heart
fluttered a bit, almost faltering, reaching for the connection to a kindred
spirit, for someone who might understand her. Someone who knew her, who spoke
her language. She set her wine glass down, resisting the urge to run, to fling
herself into his arms, to bury her face in his chest, and have a good cry.

Patrick.

He was just
stepping back from his embrace with Mrs., and her friends were standing around,
giving him appreciative glances, with nodding faces, hands clasped together,
and the titter of nervous laughter. As he uncoiled from the respectful bear
hug, and his eyes lifted, she could see the blue-green hue she used to dream
about when she wondered as a young girl if it was possible to marry two men and
still be a good girl. Later, they’d all talked about it, laughed about it. Ryan
had gotten quiet afterward several times, and, when she’d agreed to marry him,
questioned her about her feelings, her decision to marry him after so many
refusals. Ryan was right about one thing. A tiny piece of her had never stopped
loving Patrick.

“Hey Sis,” he
said, bringing up his favorite nickname for her.

“Hey Bro,” she
answered back. It was as close to the secret handshake as any two long-term
friends could have.

Patrick
apprised her respectfully and then said in that proud way only he could do, “In
every way but blood, Cici.” He tore his eyes off Stephanie to make the point to
the older woman, but soon he was scanning Stephanie’s face again, intensely.
She felt the unaltered attraction there in her belly again, just like she used
to do as a young girl, when they played co-ed soccer and he’d tackle her and
then help her up and ask carefully if she’d been hurt.

“You can’t hurt
me, Patrick,” she’d always said, to prove how tough she was, kicking a lump of
muddy grass from her cleats. He would look at her and grin, just like he was
doing right now.

I'm feeling a little giddy with the recent successes my SEALs have given me. For five commenters on this blog today, if you leave your coded email address in your comment, you'll get a free copy of SEAL's Goal. Guess what position Stephanie played on her soccer teams as a youngster for a chance to win the book.

And leave the message "I love Sharon Hamilton's audio books" with your coded email and you might win an audio book from the SEAL Brotherhood series. I'll be selecting two winners and yes, you can double dip.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

We have a saying in Texas, it goes something like this: Damn it's hot in August and this year it seems hotter than usual at least for my Marines!

During Authors After Dark 2014, the readers showed some love for the Always a Marine series. As many of you know this is a series near and dear to my heart. I love my guys (and gals) who serve, and rooting for them to find a happily ever after.

These are stories that stick with me! With over 22 releases in the series itself and more to come, please let me just say thank you for coming on this journey with me and hold onto your hats, because yes, the Marines are coming!

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Hello there! It's been a while. I seem to have this nasty habit. If I don't write my blog post the *second* it occurs to me, I forget it and I forget all about it. I'd like to blame it on old age, but it's been a problem for way too long. I think I keep 3M in Post-It Notes profit. There's even a bright green one taped to my computer monitor, as I type, that says "blog post."

This month, I thought I'd do something a little different. I thought I'd post an excerpt from my WIP, as of now untitled, but goes by the unofficial title of "Truck's Story." I know, isn't that just so original?!

Truck is an officer in the United States Air Force. He flies on the AC-130 Specter Gunship as a Combat System's officer. He and his crew mates are temporarily grounded, they hope, so Truck decides to spend some time on his other passion, enjoying the subs at Chain of Command, a local BDSM club. But before he can do that, he meets Genevieve, a worker with an NGO based in Africa. She's come back to state-side to raise holy hell with the military brass, but before she can do that, she meets Truck, a man who brings out every sub instinct she has.

A beam of sunlight poked at Genevieve’s brain, pricking at her to wake up. Her non-tortured eyelid fluttered with the effort to open and failed. With a loud groan, she rolled to her other side in an attempt to dodge the sun streaming into her room and the drum banging in her head. The blue of her sheets appeared before her eyes as she finally managed to pry her lids open.

Blue sheets? What the hell? My sheets are ivory.

Where the hell was she? What the hell happened last night?

The kettle drum banging in her brain amplified as she tried to recall the events of the previous evening.

The last thing she remembered was Timothy wanting to take her to the local BDSM club. She had only planned on meeting the guy, no jumping right into a scene. She remembered asking him to call her a cab so she could go home. Obviously, that hadn’t happened. Instead of waking up in her own room, she woke up here. Wherever here happened to be.

A terrifying thought popped into her mind. She swallowed hard against a wave of nausea. Dear God in Heaven, had she left the bar with Timothy? Genevieve lifted up the comforter and peered underneath. The breath she didn’t realize she was holding whooshed out. At least she was still dressed, wherever the hell she spent the night. If she had gone home with the jerk, she hadn’t slept with him.

Pushing herself to a sitting position gave her a better angle to survey her surroundings. It did nothing for her head. The stark room divulged nothing. The bare walls and uncluttered dresser top revealed nothing about her host. Strike that. She’d bet her last grant award this room, this place, belonged to a man. Sure, the comforter, sheets, and curtains of blue made it a relatively safe bet. But the lack of anything personal, hell, anything at all, sealed the deal.

Tugging her legs free of the tangled bed linens, Genevieve inched her feet to the floor. She’d never figure out what happened last night if she stayed in the bed. She tugged at her dress, untwisting it from around her waist.

Eww. The image staring back at her looked like, well, she didn’t have any words to describe her hair or her smeared make up. With only her fingers to make herself into something resembling a female human, she fixed herself up as much as possible. Once she’d repaired her wild ponytail and her mascara-smudged eyes, she was as ready as she’d ever be.

Drawing a deep breath, Genevieve rose from the bed and shuffled to the door. She pulled on the door knob and found herself at the end of a short hall. With moving ahead being the only non-cowardly option, she marched to the end and wobbled as she stopped short.

Holy mother of God.

The hall opened into a large living room and kitchen separated by a low bar. And standing behind that barrier stood the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Not to mention the largest. He worked at something on the counter, allowing her to oogle to her lust’s content. His short dark hair neatly cropped his head. Chiseled cheekbones and a strong chin finished off his face, covered by a five o’clock shadow. His shoulders looked so broad; his T-shirt clung to his wide chest and narrow waist. The muscles in his biceps flexed with whatever activity on which he focused. What she wouldn’t give to see if his abs looked as good as the rest of him.

What the hell was wrong with her? She stood in the apartment of a complete stranger and instead of figuring out where she was, she drooled over the man. She drew in a deep breath, preparing to step into the living room.

Friday, August 1, 2014

I know that many of you loved The Santinis and I had a lot of emails telling me they wanted MORE, MORE, AND MORE! And I said, no, after Joey and Papa, I was done.

Then a funny thing happened...

I was writing Touch Me and a Santini popped up. I hadn't even thought about the other branches of the Santini family tree, but Dante didn't care. He just barged into it and I now have at least five more books to write. I am sure there will be more to follow.

These will not be novellas like the others, but more than twice the size of the other books.

Madison Baker was born and bred to be a Marine. When a roadside bomb ends her first deployment—not to mention her career—she is left to pick up the pieces of what is left of her life. She’s returned to Oceanside to regroup and move on. It doesn’t mean she’s ready for a relationship, even if a particular Santini has different plans.

Love happens when you least expect it.

When he first met Madison back at the Academy, Dante Santini was sure the woman was put on the earth to irritate him. She’s prickly and mouthy. She always thinks she’s right. Worse—she almost always is. She hasn’t really changed over the years. One disagreement ends up with them lip locked and very nearly falling into bed, Dante discovers he might need to rethink his first impression.When Madison is convinced she witnesses a murder, the only person who believes her is Dante. Together, they sift through the meager evidence, trying to unearth the secrets someone is trying to hide. Neither one of them expecting it would draw them closer—or that a killer is hell bent on making sure those secrets stay buried.